Netflix’s Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams’ Ending, Explained

Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams might seem like your regular run-of-the-mill sci-fi/horror anthology, but everything gets tied together at the end. If the conclusion has left you scratching your head, here’s Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams‘s ending explained.

What Happens During Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams’ Ending?

Each of the seven Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams episodes can be watched individually, and they each tell their own tale. However, when you put them all together, they establish two things. First of all, there are monsters who will manipulate, feed upon, or even kill humans. And secondly, there are some humans who have special powers.

The final scene of Episode 6 reveals that Dewi, whose husband fell victim to a mind-controlling monster, is recruiting people to help fight them. Episode 7 plays out like a normal story, and we learn that the monsters, who wear lenses to disguise their solid black eyes, have been harvesting people with talented body parts and eating those parts like a delicacy.

It’s going badly for the episode’s protagonist, Valdya, a diamond appraiser whose sister went missing, when a group of people, all dressed in red, burst in and take on the monsters. Some wield firearms, and others use their special powers to fight the creatures. Unfortunately, they’re too late to save the seven people Valdya came in with, who all were eaten.

They slay the monsters and free Valdya, explaining that the monsters, who look human, were created at the same time as mankind but now dwell underground in a place called Agartha. However, they’re now trying to take over the human world.

The team, who call themselves The Antibodies, asks her to join them, and she agrees. The suggestion is that there are many more monsters to find and fight, setting up a potential but unconfirmed Season 2.

There is, however, one loose end, and that’s the fate of Ipah, seen in Episode 2. Episode 7 suggests Syafin, the orphan she and her now-deceased husband adopted, was also an Agarthan monster. In Episode 2, she stabbed her husband to protect Syafin but then stabbed herself, unable to live with what she’d done.

However, at the end of that episode, we see him put his hands on her wound, which begins to glow. Is she alive? Could he be a good monster? We don’t find out because neither he nor Ipah turn up during the ending of Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams.

Related: In Netflix’s Parasyte: The Grey, What Is the Grey?

Who Are The Antibodies, Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams Super Team?

Including Valdya, there are seven heroes making up The Antibodies. Here’s who’s who, along with their respective powers and episodes:

Panji (Episode 1): Panji lost his dementia-stricken mother to the monsters dwelling within a nursing home. Apart from being handy with a shotgun, he can heal people with a touch.

Rania (Episode 3): Author Rania’s twin sister was kidnapped by one of the monsters, and while she found her, she was too late to save her. She has the ability to take control of people and make them mirror her movements, even to the point of cutting their own throats.

Wahyu (Episode 4): Wahyu was contacted by a supreme being who filled him with knowledge. He used this knowledge to create The Antibodies and has additional physical and mental powers, including the ability to break the monsters’ influence. Yes, he’s this show’s Professor X.

Dewi (Episode 5): Dewi’s husband was mind-controlled by a monster, and while she was able to free him by killing the monster, it appears he never recovered. She has the power to hypnotize people and use the force of her mind to kill the monsters.

Ali (Episode 6): Ali tried hypnotizing Dewi, to his cost, but he broke free of her counter-hypnosis, proving his worth. His powers are similar to hers.

Laksmi (Episode 7): A new character introduced in Episode 7, very little has been revealed about Laksmi, though we may learn her story if Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams gets a Season 2.

Valdya (Episode 7): Valdya is the diamond appraiser known for her amazing eyes. It’s those eyes that the monsters want to eat, but The Antibodies arrive in time to save her.

Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams ends with all those heroes ready to take the fight to the monsters, this time with a new recruit. And that’s Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams‘ ending explained.

Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams is streaming now on Netflix.